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DIY Stock Filter Cartridge Replacements

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I purchased a couple of Aqueon tank "kits" and knew I wasn't going to be completely happy with the filter parts of them but they were on a pretty big sale so went ahead and got them anyway.

I wasn't sure how I was going to "upgrade" the filters to ditch those filter cartridges and be able to add my own media but figured where there was a will there was a way. After thinking about it for a bit and looking at various media options and supplies online I came up with the following which I hope will work out well:

I have an Aqueon 55/75 on my 70 gallon bowfront and am interested in replacing the cartridges with something like this. What kind of bags are used? Are they purpose built or made for something else? What kind of media should I use? Can I use hydroton (expanded clay pellets)? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

You can also cut a slit in the top of the "front" side of the actual Aqueon branded filter cartridge and dump out the carbon and replace with Matrix, floss, ceramic rings, etc. That's what I ended up doing on my Mini Bow 5 gallon that my betta is in and will probably do that when I get another tank up and running and am using the Quietflow 20 again. When I "made" the one with the bag and whatnot I wasn't able to cut apart the stock cartridge because I was still using it so that was my solution. Just be more careful when rinsing it in the old tank water so the pieces don't fall out:)

Originally Posted by SteelToeBlue

I have an Aqueon 55/75 on my 70 gallon bowfront and am interested in replacing the cartridges with something like this. What kind of bags are used? Are they purpose built or made for something else? What kind of media should I use? Can I use hydroton (expanded clay pellets)? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

You can either use the stock cartridges and modify in the way I mentioned above or if you want to do the more custom one with the bag over the outside plastic piece I used the Seapora filter media bags from bigalspets.com http://goo.gl/bD9cM but you could probably get most bags to work if they are close enough in size. I used Seachem Matrix in mine but any smaller sized media should work, even just adding more filter floss stuffed in there would probably be better than the stock cartridge. I don't know anything about the hydroton but there is some info here: http://goo.gl/w3KA2.